After three days of rock-star treatment — a glittering state dinner at the White House, a lunch with hundreds of American business and policy leaders who fairly gushed praise, a Thursday evening dinner here capped by a $1 million gift to Chinese students — President Hu Jintao of China and an entourage of senior officials departed for home on Friday.
Perhaps nowhere was he celebrated more than in Chicago, which is working feverishly to establish itself as the go-to city for Chinese corporate offices and investment. Mayor Richard M. Daley has been to China four times in six years to promote his (and President Obama’s) hometown. Chicago’s public schools have enrolled 12,000 students in Mandarin classes.
And one of Chicago’s elite public schools, Walter Payton College Prep, is host to the Chinese government’s most ardent effort at image-polishing — a Confucius Institute, one of roughly 280 established worldwide. On Thursday, Mr. Hu dined on filet mignon with civic and business leaders and Mayor Daley, who announced a $1 million grant from the Margot and Tom Pritzker Family Foundation to bring promising Chinese designers and architects to study at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The following morning, Mr. Hu reciprocated. During a visit to Payton College Prep, he announced that his government would bring 20 of the school’s faculty and students to China during this summer, prompting cheers from students — all of whom are studying Mandarin and needed no translation to understand his remarks. Whether Chicago’s courtship of Mr. Hu will pay off remains to be seen. But so far, it has not done badly. About 30 Chinese companies have offices in the city, officials say, and about 300 Chicago companies operate in China.
Translation Tweak
“President Hu realizes that — and told the world — that China has to do better.”
That was the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on Thursday, a day after Mr. Hu said at a news conference with Mr. Obama that “a lot still needs to be done in terms of human rights” in China.
One would have to work hard, Mr. Gibbs added, to recall any Chinese leader “making such a frank admission.”
True enough. But on closer inspection, it appeared that — publicly, at least — Mr. Hu actually conceded nothing. The problem begins with China’s definition of human rights. Practically, the government defines them in terms of economic development: a 2008 statement to the United Nations, for example, mentioned poverty, famine, disease, war, climate change and food, and financial and oil crises as threats to human rights. Political rights went unmentioned.
And Mr. Hu’s remarks that China had a long way to go? “They say that all the time,” said Susan Shirk, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Consider the 2009 edition of “Progress in China’s Human Rights,” a high-level government document. “Due to its inadequate and unbalanced development,” the report says of China, “there is still much room for improvement in its human rights conditions.”
Finally, Mr. Hu caught the ears of some American officials and China watchers when he said on Thursday that China accepted the “universal value” of human rights. That would signal a shift in official policy; up to now, the state media has condemned the notion that human rights are a universal value, dismissing it as a Western belief that is unsuited to China.
But in fact, it was Mr. Hu’s translator, not the Chinese president, who uttered the words “universal value.” What Mr. Hu actually said, it was later discovered, was “universal principle” — government boilerplate that underlies China’s longstanding policies.
Piano Politics?
One of the highlights of the state dinner was a performance by Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist who has been a sensation in music circles. Mr. Lang played a duet with the American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, then a haunting traditional Chinese melody called “My Motherland.”
In China, it turns out, “My Motherland” is better known as the theme from the film “Battle on Shangganling Mountain,” a 1956 Chinese classic about a Korean War battle in which a vastly outnumbered band of Chinese soldiers held off American and United Nations forces for 42 days.
If, in retrospect, “My Motherland” might seem to be a regrettable choice for a state dinner, it clearly was unintentional. Mr. Lang, an American-trained pianist who divides his time between the United States and China, is an artist who melds American and Chinese cultures.
The Onion Weighs In
Not many American policymakers would disagree that the United States’ growing indebtedness to China, which has financed American spending through its purchases of Treasury bonds, is an issue of concern. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it succinctly when, according to one of the WikiLeaks cables made public last year, she asked the Australian prime minister, “How do you deal toughly with your banker?”
But leave it to The Onion, the satirical news outlet, to come up with a bright side to making your competitor rich. After the state dinner, the editors posted this flash on Twitter: “> @TheOnion: BREAKING #NEWS: Chinese President Hu Jintao Pays For #StateDinner While President Obama in Bathroom”
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